Dual Panel1When we turned and set out for the wilderness, making towards the Red Sea as the LORD had instructed me, we spent many days marching round the hill-country of Seir.
2Then the LORD said to me,
3“You have been marching round these hills long enough; turn northwards.
4Give the people this charge: You are about to pass through the territory of your kinsmen, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. Although they are afraid of you, be very careful
5not to quarrel with them; for I shall not give you any of their land, not so much as a foot's breadth: I have given the hill-country of Seir to Esau as a possession.
6You may purchase food from them to eat and buy water to drink.”
7The LORD your God has blessed you in everything you have undertaken. He has watched over your journey through this great wilderness; these forty years the LORD your God has been with you, and you have gone short of nothing.
8So we went on past our kinsmen, the descendants of Esau who live in Seir, and along the road of the Arabah which comes from Elath and Ezion-geber, and we turned and went in the direction of the wilderness of Moab.
9There the LORD warned me, “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to battle, for I shall not give you any of their land as a possession. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.”
10(Formerly the Emim lived there --
11a great and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim. The Rephaim also were reckoned as Anakim, but the Moabites called them Emim.
12The Horites lived in Seir at one time, but the descendants of Esau occupied their territory: they exterminated them as they advanced and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the territory which the LORD gave them.)
13“Come, cross the wadi of the Zared,” said the LORD. So we went across.
14The journey from Kadesh-barnea to the crossing of the Zared lasted thirty-eight years, until the entire generation of fighting men had passed away, as the LORD had sworn that they would.
15The LORD's hand was against them, and he rooted them out of the camp to the last man.
16When the last of the fighting men among the people had died,
17the LORD spoke to me.
18“Today”, he said, “you are to cross by Ar which lies on the frontier of Moab,
19and when you reach the territory of the Ammonites, you must not harass them or provoke them to battle, for I shall not give you any Ammonite land as a possession; I have assigned it to the descendants of Lot.”
20(This also is reckoned as the territory of the Rephaim, who lived there at one time; but the Ammonites called them Zamzummim.
21They were a great and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim, but the LORD destroyed them as the Ammonites advanced and occupied their territory,
22just as he had done for Esau's descendants who lived in Seir. As they advanced, he destroyed the Horites so that they occupied their territory and took possession instead of them: so it is to this day.
23It was Caphtorites from Caphtor who destroyed the Avvim who lived in the hamlets near Gaza, and settled in the land instead of them.)
24“Come, move on and cross the wadi of the Arnon, for I have delivered Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his territory into your hands. Begin the conquest; engage him in battle.
25Today I shall start to put the fear and dread of you into all the peoples under heaven; if they so much as hear a rumour of you, they will quake and tremble before you.”
26From the wilderness of Kedemoth I sent envoys to King Sihon of Heshbon with the following overtures:
27“Grant us passage through your country: we shall keep to the highway, trespassing neither to right nor to left,
28and we shall pay you the full price for the food we eat and the water we drink.
29The descendants of Esau who live in Seir granted us passage, and so did the Moabites in Ar. We shall simply pass through your land on foot, until we cross the Jordan to the land which the LORD our God is giving us.”
30But King Sihon of Heshbon refused to grant us passage; for the LORD your God had made him stubborn and obstinate, in order that he and his land might become subject to you, as it is to this day.
31The LORD said to me, “Come, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his territory into your hands. Begin the conquest; occupy his land.”
32When Sihon with all his people marched out to oppose us in battle at Jahaz,
33the LORD our God delivered him into our hands; we killed him along with his sons and all his army.
34We captured all his towns at that time and put to death under solemn ban everyone in them, men, women, and dependants; we left no survivors.
35We carried off the cattle as spoil and plundered the towns we captured.
36From Aroer on the edge of the wadi of the Arnon and the town in the wadi, as far as Gilead, no town had walls too lofty for us; the LORD our God laid everything open to us.
37But you avoided the territory of the Ammonites, both the parts along the wadi of the Jabbok and their towns in the hills, thus fulfilling all that the LORD our God had commanded.